2021, Vol.29, No.1

Journal of the Korean Society for Musicology 2024 KCI Impact Factor : 0.64

eISSN : 3092-2410
https://journal.kci.go.kr/musicology

This paper is a fundamental study on Mary Sungduk Youn (尹聖德, 1903~1968), a female musician who studied abroad in early modern Korea, and starts to discover her life and her musical activities based on primary sources and historical records such as newspapers, magazines, copies of personal documents and the records from the universities and the archives in the U.S. Based on them, Youn’s life can be divided into 3 periods. The first period is the time when she was raised and educated under the Christian family and Ewha Haktang. And the second is the time when she went abroad to study music in the U.S., supported by several missionaries involved in Ewha College and the time she devoted herself as a professor to improve the music educational system of Ewha College after coming back from America. The last is the time after she revisited the U.S. for having experience on the latest music educational system and for introducing it to Ewha College. The vocation for music that appeared throughout Youn’s life and activities was manifest as a music educator under the strong influence of Christianity and women’s education policy rather than self-actualization for personal success and fame. And Youn was an important figure after Alice Kim (1890~1951) who was the first music educator going abroad to study in the U.S., and as a pioneer Youn was at the beginning of studying abroad of female musicians such as Mary Chesik Kim (1906~2005) and Youngyi Kim (1908~1986), supported by missionaries within their strong network. By discovering Youn’s life and musical activities with the people involved, this study will provide the opportunity to examine the conflicts and desires of female musicians who were active in the early modern Korea.

This article analyzed songs that correspond to Japanese songs among the ban imposed during the Park Chung-hee military regime. This paper starts from the possibility that the Yonanuki (or Miyakobushi) scale, which some claim, functioned as a stigma symbolizing Japanese style distortion. The banned songs of the period were analyzed to see if the so-called Japanese style songs were made up of the Yonanuki scale, and if there were any parts that were mistaken for similarities to traditional scales even though they were not the Yonanuki scale. Park Jung-hee has a strong aspect of using banned songs to secure his political legitimacy in the coup and soothe the anti-Japanese sentiment that occurred since Korea-Japan diplomatic relations. In other words, the policy on popular songs during this period was used as an important medium for propaganda, and he encouraged sound songs to maintain the regime and excluded banned songs. Such activities have relation with Park Chung-hee's pro-Japanese history, and the banned songs have been used as tools to secure the legitimacy of the Park Chung-hee administration. This article assumes that the Park Chung-hee administration's ban on distortion is related to ideology or political situations examined the role of the review organization and the meaning of changes in prohibited items and analyzed the melody structure of 33 Japanese styled songs with traditional melody. As a result, it was revealed that the fact that banned songs were branded as Japanese style was an excessive act for political purposes and understanding of the melody structure. Nevertheless, it is revealed that it was an excessive political act to label as Japanese style because of partial similarities.

Discourse on virtuoso is connected with various musicological disciplines such as music history, aesthetics, sociology, and performance practice. Based on those disciplines, this thesis examines the subject of virtuoso through criticism, visual images, and analysis of piano music for left hand by maintaining focus on the medium of body. 19th century descriptions and metaphors about body in caricatures and criticism of virtuoso performers show the perception and taste common in the popular entertainment culture, especially the freak show, and in virtuoso concerts. Virtuoso’s body became the source of the pleasure and imagination of the overwhelmed audience while looking, and the metaphor of monsters and deformities was a means of admiring the transcendental abilities of extraordinary body in terms of social norm or standard. From piano literature for left hand, it is possible to read how the technical demand for body is met under the condition of a lack of one hand. Left hand has been as much closely related to virtuosity as it was considered less capable than right hand, and the literature for left hand points to the visibility of transcending the limit of body or disability.